Saturday, January 12, 2008

Today's "before and after" photos come with a little story. In May 2006, Phil Brigandi and I found this first image (top) in a collection of County Planning Dept photos at the O.C. Archives. We knew it was taken in the 1960s, but couldn't tell where it was shot. Armed with a copy of the photo, local historian (and County Historical Commission member) Don Dobmeier did some detective work and returned to us promptly with the second photo, which he took himself. As it turns out, the photo(s) depict a section of Artcraft Ave, in Garden Grove. It's part of a housing tract that was built in the mid-1950s.

.The word is out that local historian, architecture expert and author Diann Marsh will return for a visit to O.C. late next month. The Anaheim Historical Society plans to line her up as a speaker while she's in town. Diann moved out of state some years ago, and I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to meet her. I refer to her books constantly.

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As we'd feared, Carl Karcher, founder of Carl's Jr. and prominent Anaheim citizen, died on Friday at age 90. See the Register's coverage for details.

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Also, Wade Sampson has posted a tribute to Disney Imagineer Joyce Carlson, who passed away earlier this month. Carlson was especially noted for her work on it's a small world, and for her talents in the use of color.

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Finally, I wanted to point out there there were some interesting follow-ups to yesterday's post about the First National Bank of Orange. Be sure to check them out.

3 comments:

Chris: Thanks for the nice dose of then-and-now. I have an old postcard of a 1950's Anaheim neighborhood that I spent a few hours trying to find last Summer without success. It's tough work searching neighborhoods without knowing any of the cross streets (and houses can change considerably over 50 years!)

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